Incorporating Technology in Education

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Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Digital Citizenship “is the norms of appropriate,
responsible technology use” (Ribble). This is the way teachers and students
understand the appropriateness of internet resources and online communities. In
grades 7-12 many students have knowledge and exposure to online resources, in
this level they are expected to understand the good and bad of what is out
there and what these sources have to offer. We, generally, like to teach
digital citizenship within these grades to help better students when research
for valid information, communication via email, social media pages, etc. and
stay safe online.

Generally
for the secondary education level we see many problems arise with obtaining
valid and resourceful sites for papers and other research projects. Also, respectively
communicating with others online is another issue because students in higher grade
levels are supposed to go beyond the web pages when working on projects and get
real life information. These can include emailing sources, people, and asking
questions online to successfully gather in-depth information to better support
their working project. The biggest issue tends to toward away from the
academia, and enters the lives of others. Students need to understand that
anyone can get information from you; you don’t know who you are actually
talking to. Online you can be anonymous, and being anonymous can have
significant pros and cons. Cyber Bullying is one of the top issues that center
the 7-12 grade levels. Cyber bullying “is when a child, preteen or teen is
tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted
by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital
technologies or mobile phones” (Wired Safety).

Cyber Bullying
is a national problem in all grades and happens everywhere. As teachers it is
important to teach all aspects of technology and how to use them properly. This
includes on the academic level as well as the personal level. Teaching Digital
Citizenship is highly important to end the use of Cyber bullying in particular
because it can be very harmful to other students. It can lead to depression,
decrease in academics, and health problems (StopBullying.gov). Digital
Citizenship is also important because online resources are for our benefit as a
resource, and are not meant to be abused.

Teacher can
use many resources to understand the important of digital citizenship. See
Below:

·Importance:
Information, interactive PowerPoint informs and mentions key areas for grades
7-12 on the proper use of technology and it uses a short question and answer
section for the students to collaborate their own knowledge.

These, of
many others, are useful tools that teachers can easily research and perform to
give students the general pros and cons of working online and how they can keep
themselves safe.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

"Learning to Unlearn," crazy right? It may seem odd to apply this to education but it can be one of the most effective traits a 21st century educator can posses. It allows a constant change of pedagogical beliefs and teaching styles when more effective teaching styles appear that adapt to the learning of the students. Commonly teachers learn and stick with their personal teaching style that they are comfortable with. A teacher should be filled of knowledge and continue to get more, If we continue to learn year after year, why can we not learn to unlearn what does not work and relearn how to make it more effective. Our job as educators is to be able to pass down our knowledge to young aspiring individuals. We are responsible as well for the correct way we portray this information so the students' best understand it. Learning new teaching styles and methods are more beneficial than not trying to teach more effectively for our students' benefits.

Educators need to teach and teach effectively on behalf of the student. They are the priority of the education system and the future. Our responsibilities are to incorporate 21st century learning styles as much as we can in an effective way. Incorporating technology is one the first steps to help students learn and be engaged in their learning. Getting them adapted to new and changing technology will best suit them for the future as they progress into a career. Hands on learning is also an effective technique to get the students to actively engage in their learning. An interesting blog post I came across from
Graham Wegner titled,"Unlearning, Learning,
Relearning" had an interesting quote, "It's not really about the technology per se, although I think that the requirement to integrate technology is a trigger that brings these attitudes to the surface. The real issue is that some teachers - who are supposed to be learning professionals - have forgotten what it means to learn, unlearn, and relearn." Teacher need to use and evaluative process on how they
teach, why they teach, and what is and is not effective anymore. If this is
done continuously teachers will not be lost on where to start to unlearn their
obsolete techniques and relearn new and effective ones. When a teacher follows
the process to learn, unlearn the ineffective, and relearn the effective
education can advance is many ways involving the students, the teacher, and the
district.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Interactive White Boards (IWB) have been an issue within
the classroom whether they are beneficial to learning and have the necessary
ability for a teacher to differentiate a classroom. IWB’s have been a popular trend in schools
now for the past few years and are in many classrooms today. For those who do not know what IWB’s are,
they simply project the computer screen onto a board and allow the teacher to
be active with her lectures than sitting by the computer. It allows them to use a pen, or finger based
on the brand you buy, and control the computer.
There are of course benefits and drawbacks to the use of IWB’s in the
classroom. The benefits allow the
teacher to build interactive lectures and exercises for the students and help
add to the 21st century classroom. Although
this benefit does come with the drawback, the teacher, they are responsible for
the content they teach and when using an IWB, they need to know how to use it
effectively. Many teachers as stated in
this article
said, "I feel they are as useful as a chalkboard." Which in
many cases that is what teachers use the IWB for, using PowerPoint, or playing
video clips, etc. Districts are spending millions of dollars on these IWB and
teachers are not using them to their full capabilities.

My experiences with IWB’s have been satisfactory. In high school we didn’t have SMART boards or
Promethean boards in every classroom, but in select ones, such as the Spanish classrooms
and Technology classrooms. In Spanish class
the teacher used the IWB to give PowerPoint lectures, and interactive Spanish activities
like student response remotes, aka ‘clickers’ for reviews and practice exercises,
and were more beneficial than doing independent flashcards in groups to learn
words. IWB’s can have an impact on the
classroom but need to be used correctly; I seem to be falling back on the
teacher, not the technology. Teachers
need to be taught how to use this technology to its fullest advantage
for it to be beneficial to the classroom as well as the district since they are
a bit pricey. Also, with my work in
class learning the software and technology for the Promethean IWB it is
somewhat confusing, but once you overcome that it can be easy to use to actively
engage students in lecture. But like any
new technology, students become engaged for a short time, and then as one
teacher said, “My kids were bored with it after about three weeks."
Incorporating IWB’s should be the choice of the teacher and must evaluate their
need for one by getting their reason approved.
Why have districts pay an outrageous price for an IWB in all the classrooms,
or even more basic, why are we spending so much for a ‘digitalized’ chalkboard?

IWB’s, in my opinion, are useful when used correctly. They can be a great resource tool for a wide
variety of teaching and instruction. This
can be great when differentiating a classroom.
Some teachers don’t realize it but they have the internet at their
fingertips when working with IWB’s they can use a variety of instruction
techniques, pull up clips from YouTube, TeacherTube, etc. It’s that easy to find
multiple examples, videos, and exercises for the students to use that best suits
their leaning style. SMART Technology
even provides teachers with this guide
for differentiated learning with a SMART board.If teachers took the time to use the IWB’s to
their fullest potential, they would be worth adding to each classroom and
ensures achievement with all types of students.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Many
of us have heard the term differentiation and how teachers need to
differentiate their classroom. Differentiation is how a teacher uses the
knowledge and skills of their students to effectively present, teach, and test
on curricular content. We set every student to a set of standards for them to
reach. We also know students work at different levels, no students are the
same. We as teachers need to understand every student’s ability in both
comprehension of the content as well as their ability to learn it. With that
being said we cannot expect each student to understand one method of teaching
we need to make the content appealing to all learning styles.

Differentiation
is very time consuming for a teacher. It adds more stress in finding new and
useful resources to get across the same content to different level learners.
Here are some helpful lessons
a teacher should review before starting differentiating their classrooms. One route we seem to see is that the use of
technology and its incorporation to the classroom as a learning tool seems to appeal
to many students. With the variety of technology out their today, it allows
students to pick up the information in multiple ways which best suits them.
Placing the learning into the hands of the students is an effective way to get
them to see where they are in need of improvement as well as helping themselves
best obtain the knowledge in the standards.

What
I found most effective in a differentiated classroom is very basic to many
teachers today and can be very effective. The use of PowerPoint during
instruction is a great way for students to see the information visually for the
visual learners and when using PowerPoint talking and noting on important
content areas is beneficial to the auditory learners. It is also a key
importance to work in group or solo activities for students to work together or
alone to focus and practice on the content so they can reach those standards.
These activities can be a wide range of opportunity for teachers to adapt
different and useful tools of technology. Also, the teacher will advise, help,
and further explain areas of struggle to specific groups of students rather
than wasting valuable lecture time to continue to explain certain areas.

I
feel that differentiation is important for all students so that can achieve and
reach standards that are being placed. As a pre-service teacher I will do my
very best to incorporate different teaching styles to best suit the needs of my
students.

Another
blog on Differentiation with helpful information can be found here. For useful
videos from real teachers go on The Teaching
Channel and see the tools they have adapted for their students.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

After a few days of experiencing twitter and its resources, such as tweet deck, within the classroom. It has helped me see that online tools, social networking, and many other forms of technology can be beneficial in the classroom. I found that using twitter to communicate gave us to collaboratively share information, such as our chapter two twitter quiz, was beneficial to all who participated to see different views of the questions.
This may seem odd, a quiz on twitter, and it was odd to me at first as well. But once we started going, the whole class had many opinions and different views on the questions that were asked. We were able to collaboratively work from a network of answers and place them into our small group response.
Twitter can aid in many classrooms with conversations in school, as well as at home. With the access students have to twitter can allow them to pop in a conversation for questions, discussions on topics as well as obtaining events and important dates.
Follow me on my professional twitter! @bellissimo_m

Thursday, February 7, 2013

This assignment was to use the information from Ertmer's article on education, technology, and how they struggle to combine because of the interference with teacher beliefs.Below, my group and I were to create and publish an informational presentation to persuade teachers to introduce technology because of the array of benefits it has to offer.The article explained how many teachers hold true to their belief on how education should work. Many have struggled to convert over in using technology and its benefits in the classroom. Students use technology everyday in in this high tech world and would love to place the learning into technology for a more hands on an d personalized learning. Breaking away from their belief is hard to do because they obtained their pedagogy from a non-technology advanced area. The article continued with the struggles and the amount of effort needed to learn, understand, and communicate well from the use of technology.Over the past few days, the group worked collaboratively through Google Drive and held many conversations in the information placed within this presentation. Although there seemed to be many benefits, we placed the most important information along with external sources for further exploration.This presentation is designed to persuade the non-technology teachers to adapt a new teaching style to benefit students of the 21st century. Even with small effort, taking baby steps for incorporating technology, or making the giant leap to undertake all technology has to offer these students.Presentation: Technology in Education

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

My name is Michael Bellissimo,
and welcome to my blog. I am a second semester freshman at Edinboro University
of Pennsylvania and studying for a degree in Mathematics. I am also obtaining a
teaching certificate for Secondary Education. My hometown is in Perry, Ohio
(east of Cleveland). I graduated Perry High School with honors this past summer
and began my college career here at EUP.

In High School, I was very
active in my High School math department as a teachers' assistant and tutor for
at risk students my junior and senior year. I have had in-class observations of
various teaching methods as well as direct contact with struggling students.
While tutoring I would always ask, what was the problem they had with
understanding the information during class lectures. Many responses were the
teaching methods. Of course every teacher has their own method and routine, but
today many still use basic hand written notes on a board. Although many
students learn differently, but in today's century technology is the center of our
lives and is constantly improving. As a future teacher I plan to use the
resources of technology as much as I can to appeal to all students and make the
learning appealing to them.

Technology in the classroom may seem
to cause a distraction, but that is the complete opposite! It is a valid,
useful, and helpful resource for all students to take advantage of and learn in
today’s world. Technology gives students the opportunity to take advantage in
their learning. Teachers who integrate technology appeal to all students today with the use of power-point presentations, smart boards, or even iPads! Check out this video on how iPads are more for learning and help in a classroom.

As a future teacher, with a passion
for technology and teaching, I believe that it is very important for students to have
technology available to them to obtain information, understand material and
make their choices in learning with hands on activities and technology
resources.